Saturday, October 28, 2017

Russia's A-050 Ekranoplane...what's going on?

A report from Izvestia says Russia is researching on a new ekranoplan – aka ground effect vehicle – that can perform rescue missions and resupply remote bases in Arctic and Pacific.

The project is given the code-name Rescuer and will be handled by Alekseyev Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau, which in the past produce ground effect vehicles such as Lun and Orlenok.The vehicle is expected to weigh 600 tons with a length of 93 meters and wing span of 71 meters. It will be able to operate on land as well. Top speed is 550 km/h.Scaled models have completed wind tunnel testing and the timeline to complete the project is 2025.

Alert 5 didn't provide any links so I did a quick Google search and came across numerous articles from THIS year talking about the new Russian project (how did we miss that?????).

But even that doesn't explain things because I found an article from The Register stating that China was buying the vehicle you see at the top of the page and indicating that they (Russia) was heading in a different direction.